Courtesy of Sheila Stroup Roosters crow not only at dawn, but whenever they feel like it.

After all these years, I have fallen for a rooster.

We've had chickens forever on our little homestead in the swamp, and I've always admired the hens. They give us eggs that taste a whole lot better than the kind you buy at the store, and they ask for only a little grain and some table scraps in return.

They are exemplary mothers, sitting diligently on their nests for 21 days and then teaching their babies everything they need to know about being a chicken.

Roosters, on the other hand, are a lot like college fraternity boys. They are single-minded, strutting around, showing off their feathers, thinking they're God's gift to every female in the pen.

They don't just crow at dawn. They crow whenever they feel they have something to say, which is often at 3 a.m.

Occasionally, we have gotten a mean one. When our children were young, we had a rooster who flew at them whenever they went into the pen. They named him "Chicken Salad," and that's what he became.

But now we have one old guy I have come to respect. He's the biggest rooster I've ever seen. There is a California wine called Rex-Goliath, named for a 47-pound circus chicken. I bought some in honor of our old rooster recently. He isn't that big, but almost.

He came into our lives so long ago it's hard to remember the details. He was in a batch of baby chicks we ordered from a hatchery, and eventually we noticed he was different from every other rooster we'd ever raised.

It wasn't just the way he kept on growing. It was his gentle nature and his inability to crow. When he opened his mouth, the sound that came out was "Aaawk."

He's probably 7 or 8 by now, and he can no longer walk. I think his oversized body got to be too much for his scrawny legs to hold up.

One evening in early July when we went out to gather the eggs, we found him lying awkwardly on his side, and Stroup said, "Help that old guy get up."

I gingerly placed him on his feet, and he stood there for a moment before suddenly flinging himself sideways across the pen and ending up on his back with his legs flailing in the air.

"On second thought, don't help him get up," Stroup said.

He seemed so pitiful we thought he was dying, and we considered helping him along. But there was something in his beady eye that told me he wasn't done with life.

"Let's just see how he does," I said.

A week went by and then another, but he never stood up again.

At first, I'd be relieved to see him still alive when we went to do the chores every evening. Now, I expect him to be.

I used to worry that he wouldn't be able to get to the water pan or the feeder, and that he'd end up out in the rain and catch pneumonia when a sudden storm came up. But he learned to move around by pushing himself along with his right leg. He's never in the same spot when I go down to check on him.

One day, I saw him almost walk by leaning his body against the fencing and propping himself up while he propelled himself forward with his right leg.

I thought that was resourceful, but our daughter Shannon, a veterinarian, doesn't think he was smart enough to figure out how to do that.

"He probably just happened to lean against the fence and kept on going," she said.

I know he's just a chicken with a tiny little brain, but I have come to admire the way he deals with his limited mobility and keeps plugging along.

Every evening when we go out to gather the eggs, I throw him a handful of feed, and he eats it eagerly, as if to show me he appreciates the personal service and is happy to be alive.